RCSV and SO 45th Anniversary Joint Distinguished Lecture: Insights from Visual Neuroscience on Developmental Dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia is a common learning disability characterized by difficulty in the acquisition of reading skills. Although neurobiological in nature, the cause is largely unknown. Deficits in motion perception and visual attention are well documented, but the role of these deficits in the diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia remains controversial. Vulnerability in the dorsal visual stream during development has been proposed to underlie dyslexia and other developmental disorders, but reading deficits may be better linked to the ventral stream. I will review current diagnostic criteria, theories about single core deficits versus multifactorial causes, and recommendations on the role of eye care professionals in the management of dyslexia. I will then present functional MRI work from my lab on the neural correlates of reading and motion perception deficits, functional connectivity between language and visual areas, and cortical changes in response to reading intervention.